The British grocery retailer founded in 1919 in London and the UK’s largest grocery chain is Tesco.
Sir Jack Cohen started the business in 1919 by selling surplus groceries from a market stall at Well Street Market in Hackney, East London. The Tesco name appeared in 1924, formed from “TES,” taken from tea supplier Thomas Edward Stockwell, and “CO,” from Cohen. The first permanent Tesco shop opened in Burnt Oak, north London, in 1931.
Tesco grew from market trading into supermarkets and hypermarkets. It opened its first self-service shop in St Albans in 1948 and its first supermarket in Maldon in 1956. Today, Tesco remains the UK grocery market leader, with a larger grocery market share than Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, or Lidl.
The wording can cause a small mix-up: Tesco is not necessarily the largest retailer in every global ranking or every measure of retail sales. In the context of UK grocery retail, however, “largest” conventionally identifies Tesco. Booker, Tesco Bank, and Tesco Mobile are associated businesses, but they are not competing answers to the grocery-chain clue.